Enchanters' End Game

The stake-studded trenches in front of the walls were very interesting, but one trench looked much like another, and it took a rare mind indeed to find much pleasure in the finer points of excavation.

"Very nice," Ce'Nedra said brightly to a Drasnian pikeman standing guard atop a high mound of dirt. "Splendid ditches - and all those excellently sharp stakes." She looked out at the arid landscape before the fortifications. "Where did you ever find all the wood for them?"

"The Sendars brought it in, your Majesty," he replied, "from someplace up north, I think. We had the Thulls cut and sharpen the stakes for us. They're quite good stake-makers - if you tell them what you want."

"Didn't a mounted patrol go out this way about a half an hour ago?" Ce'Nedra asked him.

"Yes, your Majesty. Lord Hettar of Algaria and some of his men. They went off that way." The guard pointed toward the south.

"Ah," Ce'Nedra said. "If anyone should ask, tell them that we're going out to join him. We should return in a few hours."

The guard looked a bit dubious about that, but Ce'Nedra moved quickly to head off any objections. "Lord Hettar promised to wait for us just beyond the south end of the fortifications," she told him. She turned to her companions. "We really mustn't keep him waiting too long. You ladies took absolutely too much time changing clothes." She smiled winsomely at the guard. "You know how it is," she said. "The riding habit must be just so, and the hair absolutely has to be brushed one last time. Sometimes it takes forever. Come along, ladies. We must hurry, or Lord Hettar will be vexed with us." With a brainless little giggle, the princess wheeled Noble and rode south at a gallop.

"Ce'Nedra, "Ariana exclaimed in a shocked voice once they were out of earshot, "you lied to him."

"Of course."

"But that's dreadful."

"Not nearly as dreadful as spending another day embroidering daisies on a stupid petticoat," the princess replied.

They left the fortifications and crossed a low, burned-brown string of hills. The broad valley beyond was enormous. Dun brown and treeless mountains reared up fully twenty miles away at the valley's far end. They cantered down into that vast emptiness, feeling dwarfed into insignificance by the colossal landscape. Their horses seemed no more than ants crawling toward the indifferent mountains.

"I hadn't realized it was so big," Ce'Nedra murmured, shading her eyes to gaze at the distant hilltops.

The floor of the valley was as flat as a tabletop, and it was only sparsely sprinkled with low, thorny bushes. The ground was scattered with round, fist-sized rocks, and the dust spurted, yellow and powdery, from each step of their horses' hoofs. Although it was scarcely midmorning, the sun was already a furnace, and shimmering heatwaves rippled the valley floor ahead, making the dusty, gray-green bushes seem to dance in the windless air.

It grew hotter. There was no trace of moisture anywhere, and the sweat dried almost instantly on the flanks of their panting horses.

"I think we should give some thought to going back," Adara said, reining in her mount. "There's no way we can reach those hills at the end of the valley."

"She's right, your Majesty," Olban told the princess. "We've already come too far."

Ce'Nedra pulled Noble to a stop, and the white horse drooped his head as if on the verge of absolute exhaustion. "Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself," she chided him irritably. This was not going at all as she had expected. She looked around. "I wonder if we could find some shade somewhere," she said. Her lips were dry, and the sun seemed to hammer down on her unprotected head.

"The terrain doth not suggest such comfort, princess," Ariana said, looking around at the flat emptiness of the rock-strewn valley floor.

"Did anyone think to bring any water?" Ce'Nedra asked, dabbing at her forehead with a kerchief.

No one had.

"Maybe we should go back," she decided, looking about rather regretfully. "There's nothing to see out here, anyway."

"Riders coming," Adara said sharply, pointing toward a mounted group of men emerging from an indented galley that lay like a fold on the flanks of a rounded hill a mile or so away.

"Murgos?" Olban demanded with a sharp intake of his breath. His hand went immediately to his sword.

Adara raised her hand to shade her eyes and stared at the approaching horsemen intently.

"No," she replied. "They're Algars. I can tell by the way they ride."

"I hope they have some water with them," Ce'Nedra said.

The dozen or so Algar riders rode directly toward them with a great cloud of yellow dust rising behind them. Adara suddenly gasped, and her face went very pale.

"What is it?" Ce'Nedra asked her.

"Lord Hettar is with them," Adara said in a choked voice.

"How can you possibly recognize anybody at that distance?"

Adara bit her lip, but did not reply.

Hettar's face was fierce and unforgiving as he reined in his sweating horse. "What are you doing out here?" he demanded bluntly. His hawkface and black scalp lock gave him a wild, even frightening appearance.

"We thought we'd go riding, Lord Hettar," Ce'Nedra replied brightly, trying to outface him.

Hettar ignored that. "Have you lost your mind, Olban?" he harshly asked the young Rivan. "Why did you permit the ladies to leave the forts?"

"I do not tell her Majesty what to do," Olban answered stiffly, his face red.

"Oh, come now, Hettar," Ce'Nedra protested. "What's the harm in our taking a little ride?"

"We killed three Murgos not a mile from here just yesterday," Hettar told her. "If you want exercise, run around the inside of the forts for a few hours. Don't just ride out unprotected in hostile territory. You've acted very foolishly, Ce'Nedra. We'll go back now." His face was grim as a winter sea, and his tone left no room for discussion.

"We had just made the same decision, my Lord," Adara murmured, her eyes downcast.

Hettar looked sternly at the condition of their horses. "You're an Algar, Lady Adara," he said pointedly. "Didn't it occur to you to bring water for your mounts? Surely you know better than to take a horse out in this kind of heat without any precautions at all."

Adara's pale face grew stricken.

Hettar shook his head in disgust. "Water their horses," he curtly told one of his men, "and then we'll escort them back. Your excursion is over, ladies."